Senior Housing Project Splits Sun Valley Area

A proposal to build a hillside apartment complex for senior citizens in a Sun Valley neighborhood zoned only for single-family homes has nearby residents divided over whether the pyramid-shaped property should be developed at all.

“The hill is not beautiful . . . ,” said one resident opposing the plan. “But, still, it’s a hill that God made.”

Supporters of the 158-unit project, however, say it will improve the looks of the hillside and provide much-needed housing for seniors.

“It’s going to be a quality project; it will not be schlocky,” said Anson Burlingame, a resident of neighboring Shadow Hills and one of 180 individuals who signed a petition in support of the development in the 8000 block of Glenoaks Boulevard. “It’s the sort of place I’d like to live in.”

The developer, Canoga Park-based Kevony Group, has applied for a zone change to allow the $14-million apartment complex to be built on 14 acres now designated for minimum density and single-family houses.

Hearing on Thursday

The Los Angeles Planning Commission has twice postponed making a recommendation, but the matter is scheduled to be heard by the board again Thursday. The City Council ultimately will decide whether the development will be built.

In the meantime, about 300 residents have signed a petition opposing the project, claiming that it will crowd a large apartment complex into an area they say is prized for its hilly topography and semi-wild vegetation.

“It’s a little oasis in the middle of the hustle and the bustle,” said Bob Johannesen, chairman of the land-use committee of the Sun Valley Residents Assn. “We just don’t want an apartment complex around here.”

Moreover, the opponents are saying that the apartment’s designation as a complex for seniors is “a smoke screen.”

“There’s been no expressed need for senior citizen housing in Sun Valley. I’ve never heard a word about anybody suffering from this,” said Johannesen’s wife, Helen Marr. “Why would senior citizens want to live in an area that offers so few services?”

‘Not Be Warehoused Off’

But Burlingame said he, for one, favors the plan because “it seems ideal to me to have seniors in an area where they can see life and young people and not be warehoused off.” He maintained that the development may actually improve the contours of a steep hill that was graded and used for dumping at the time the Golden State Freeway was built. The Sun Valley section of the freeway was completed in 1961.

“It was ugly when I moved up here 40 years ago,” Burlingame said. “The freeway cut it further and made it worse. This will bring the hill back to a natural form, with little gullies and dales.”

Tony McCloskey, president of the Kevony Group, said 90% of the hillside property already had been graded to make way for the freeway.

“We knew we weren’t coming into pristine hillside,” McCloskey said. “If that were just natural hillside, we would not have attempted it.”

City Councilman Joel Wachs, whose district includes the project area, said he has not taken a position on the plan. However, he stressed the need for more affordable housing for the elderly.

Preserve Landscape

“I think there’s a tremendous need for high-quality senior housing,” Wachs said. “I also think it’s extremely important to preserve the natural landscape.”

But Wachs said the Sun Valley hillside property may not be worth preserving, calling it “a little lump sticking out among houses.”

“Nobody’s riding their horses through this piece of land,” he said.

McCloskey said the project will be modeled after a senior citizen apartment complex built by his company in Chatsworth. The Sun Valley development, which will consist of six two-story Cape Cod-style apartment buildings, will include a recreation area, Jacuzzi, swimming pool and flower garden.

Originally, the company had wanted to build 290 apartment units, but the plan was scaled down to 158 at the suggestion of city planning officials, McCloskey said.

Although the city’s planning staff had recommended against the project, it proposed that 21 conditions, including a free shuttle service to shopping centers and medical offices, be placed on the development should it go forward.

30-Foot Height Limit

Other conditions would limit the height of the buildings to 30 feet and would require the developer to provide extensive landscaping around the complex, install an electronic security gate at the entrance, designate handicapped parking spaces in the parking lot and minimize further grading of the hillside.

McCloskey said he also would build a commissary where food staples and medicines would be sold to residents.

At neighborhood meetings, McCloskey has argued that the complex would likely bring less traffic and noise into the area than another subdivision of single-family homes.

“We don’t experience police breaking up beer parties with people that age,” McCloskey said. “We don’t have drug dealing going on, and they don’t spray the place with graffiti.”

But while most of the residents said they do not object to seniors living in their neighborhood, they say they are firmly opposed to the apartment complex. “I think it’s wrong to just come along and devastate the hills like this,” said resident Harold Petersen. “We do need senior citizen housing, but I don’t think this is the place for it.”